"Do not be surprised if you are sometimes troubled by external things; for it is not the things themselves that trouble you, but your judgment about them."

"Keep the prospect of death, exile and all such apparent tragedies before you every day – especially death – and you will never have an abject thought, or desire anything to excess."

"Do not be concerned with what people think of you. You are not living for them."

"What, then, is the fruit of these doctrines? Tranquillity, fearlessness, freedom."

"Don't demand that things happen as you wish, but wish that they happen as they do happen, and you will go on well."